How to make room on your Windows partition

Before you do anything else, create a restore point. In Windows 7, click Start, or in Windows 8, go to the Search charm. In either one, type restore point, and selectCreate a restore point, then follow the prompts.

Now that you're safe, let's do some cleaning. Go to C:'s root directory and look for a folder called Windows.old. If it's there, examine the User folder within Windows.old to find out if there's anything there you need. If there is, move the files to an appropriate folder elsewhere, such as Documents. Then delete Windows.old.

Next, open Control Panel's Programs and Features applet, and search for programs you're no longer using. Uninstall them.

You can also clean out your temp folder. Search for %temp% (including the percent signs) and you'll find it. You can safely remove any file older than the last time you booted the PC.

Next, use Windows' disk-cleaning tool, which in its latest edition can remove old updates. But be warned, doing so loses you the ability to remove an update and return Windows to a former version.

In Windows 7, you'll need to make sure you have this Windows update installed. You probably already do.

When you're ready for cleaning, you need to launch the Disk Cleanup tool as an administrator:

In Windows 7, click Start and type cleanmgr. But don't just launch the program. Right-click cleanmgr.exe and select Run as administrator.

In Windows 8.1, use the Search charm to find cleanmgr. Select cleanmgr switches. On the resulting screen, right-click cleanmgr switches and select Run as administrator at the bottom of the screen.

Once the program has examined your drive, you'll find a list of several cleanup options. The most lucrative one, the one that removes old updates, is called Previous Windows installation(s).Make sure that it's checked.

Most of the space you recover won't be visible until you next boot.